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ESSEX STREET LOOKING WEST 1826 




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HISTORIC SALEM 

Points of Interest 

By Henry W. Belknap 

With the coming of June days the stream of summer tourists 
becomes noticeable in the streets of historic Salem, and once again 
the old town extends its perennial welcome to all those who, whether 
drawn by family associations or as entire strangers, come to visit 
her wealth of interesting sites and scenes. 

Residents and natives of the city might naturally be supposed 
to be entirely familiar with the points a stranger would wish to see, 
but we are often blind to what lies daily before our eyes, and it is a 
common experience to meet with tourists who have vainly sought 
for information as to the whereabouts of our most noted spots by 
asking those they have met in their wanderings, and it has there- 
fore seemed that it would be of value to take, in imagination, a 
tour of the town and note briefly, in passing, the more important 
objects. 

Let us, then, leave the center of the town near the railroad 
station, taking Front Street and following through to Charter Street 
and pausing first at the 

Oldest Burial Place in Salem 

site of the "Burying Phice" as early as the seventeenth century, 

wherein are the graves of Philip Cromwell's wife, dated 1673, Captain 
Richard More, a youthful passenger of the Mayflower, and the only 
known stone of one of that brave band. Beside these are the stones 
of Timothv Lindall, merchant, who may be called a founder of the 
commercial life of the place; of Nathaniel, younger brother of the 
celebrated Cotton Mather; Governor Bradstreet, Rev. John Higgin- 
son and those of Justices Lynde and Hathorne of the witchcraft court. 

Continuing through the remainder of the short street we enter 
the new and broad boulevard of Hawthorne Place, neariy opposite 
which point, in Union Street, is the house in which Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne was born, and turning into Derby Street we see upon our left 
hand the fine old Custom House in which he worked, now a monu- 
ment to the days of Salem's commercial supremacy. 

Derby Street was once lined with the splendid homes of the 
merchant princes, and these, descended from their high estate to 
become lodgings of our foreign-born population, are to be seen upon 
either hand. A few, through the saving grace of several of Salem's 
charitable societies, retain much of their original dignity, as for 
example the house of Benjamin W. Crowninshield. Representative 
and Secretary of the Navy under Madison and Monroe, now the 
Home for Aged and Destitute Women, and that of Captain Joseph 
Waters (about 1806), now the Bertram Home for Aged Men. 

Reaching Turner Street we stop at its foot, upon the verge of 
Salem Harbor, and nestled among its shrubs and trees appears the 
far-famed 



House of Seven Gables 

in which the Ingersolls, relatives of Hawthorne, Hved and which is 
t)opularly considered to have been in his mind when he wrote The 
Scarlet Letter. Used now by the House of Seven Gables Associa 
tion as a community center, it is securely preserved and its fittingly 
furnished interior well repays a visit. Tucked away at the back 
of the lovely garden is the "Old Bakery" so-called, built in 1683 




The Tiikneb-Ikgkksoll Hoi se, kkown as the "lloi sp" of Seven Gables' 



by Benjamin Hooper and saved from destruction in the march of 
modern improvements by being moved here and entirely restored 
for use in connection with the settlement work. 

From the garden we get a fine view of the harbor with pictur- 
esque Naugus Head upon the other shore, and it is not hard to imagine 
the sturdy hull and towering spars of one of the old India-men just 
returned or about to sail for the Far-East, lying peacefully in the 
roadstead. 

Retracing our way through Turner and Essex streets we pass 
upon the left the Narbonne House, a fine and well-preserved speci- 
men of a dwelling dating before 1671, and turning to the right we 
skirt the Common or Training Reld, fronted with fine examples of 
early nineteenth century Colonial houses, and at the northerly end 
swing into Winter Street, passing at its foot a huge boulder com- 
memorating the service of the 23rd Regiment, Volunteer Infantry, 
in the Civil War. 

At the head of Winter Street, where Bridge Street leads to the 
northeast, the most direct route to Beverly and the North Shore, 
we turn to the left for two short blocks and enter Mall Street, nar- 
row and tree-shaded, and midway of its length glance at No. 14, in 
which Hawthorne wrote 



The Snow Image and The Scarlet Letter 

achieving literary fame, but associated with the distress of removal 
from his office in the Custom House, pecuniary troubles and the 
death of Madam Hawthorne, but where he lived until his own de- 
parture in 1850 for residence in Lenox. 

At the westerly end of the Common and facing it is the fine 
house built by John Forrester, later the town residence of George 
Peabody and now belonging to the Salem Club; just beyond it is 
the East Church organized in 1718 and at that time on Essex Street, 
in which the celebrated Dr. William Bentley preached from 1783 to 
1819. This brown-stone edifice dates from 1846. 




John- Ward Hoise. Built 1684, in the Essex Institute Gakde.v 

Opposite it stood, from 1805 to 1850, an imposing gate to the 
Common, designed by Samuel Mclntire, greatest of all the archi- 
tects of his period in these parts, of whose work we are to see examples 
as we progress. 

In front of the church, standing in an angle, as Brown Street 
enters the square, is Kitson's heroic 

Statue of Roger Conant 

the leader of Salem's first settlers, and close by the fine house built 
in 1818 by John Andrew, at the time it was built the most costly 
house in New England, the pillared colonnade on the southerly side 
being especially noteworthy. 

Just around the corner on Essex Street, up which we now turn, 
is the verv good example of Mclntire work, the White-Pingree house, 
and next' door, in two large brick buildings, one of Salem's two 
famous museums. 



The Essex Institute 

Of the wealth of priceless historical objects collected here it 
is possible in this Hraited space to do little more than make a sug- 
igestion. Founded in 1848 and succeeding two previous organiza 
tions, the Essex Historical Society and the Essex County Natural 
History Society, there has been gathered together not only one of the 
finest collections of portraits by early American painters which is in 
existence, including examples by Trumbull, Stuart, Blackburn, 
Smibert, Copley, Frothingham, Osgood and many more, but also 
cases of costume, several type rooms of early periods, valuable collec- 
tions of glass, china, furniture, jewelry, tools, implements, etc., and a 
library rich in genealogical, historical and biographical works, a 
6ne library relating to maritime subjects and one devoted to books 
upon the Chinese Empire, together with a vast store of manu- 
scripts, including the Sheffield Patent, dated in 1623, authorizing 
the settlement of the North Shore of Massachusetts by Roger Conant 
and his companions, who stopped first for three years upon Cape 
Ann and then removed to Salem. 

In the museum hangs the original flag named "Old Glory" by 
Captain William Driver in 1831, and in its cases a large group of 
military uniforms and relics of various wars. One of the interesting 
exhibits usually to be seen is the baby's shirt worn by Governor 
Bradford at his christening, together with a pair of tiny mits and 
the silk blanket used on the same occasion, but in view of their 
great value as a part of the ter-centenary celebration of the land- 
ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, these have been (1920) temporarily 
loaned to the Pilgrim Society of that place. 

In the lovly garden at the rear of the museum are various bits 
of architecture, a large annex building to the museum and a house of 
1684, furnished according to the period, and with a quaint "cent 
shop" and apothecary shop housed in the lean-to addition, also close 
by one of the small cobbler's shops of the same date, about 1830, 
of which many were dotted about the country until a compara- 
tively late time, with all the tools and materials left just as they 
were when the workmen stopped work. 

Days could be spent here if justice were to be dciie to all the 
varied sights, but we must hasten on, as only a block further stands 
the 

Peabody Museum 

quite as compelling in its interest. 

This is housed in a massive granite building, built in 1824, in 
which the lower floor was at first used by the Asiatic Bank, the 
Oriental Insurance Company and the Post Oflice, but of which the 
entire space, together with large additions in the rear, is now occu- 
pied by the Museum. 

The funds furnished by George Peabody of London to found 
this institution in 1867 were combined with those of the East India 
Marine Society, founded in 1799, and the two societies were joined 
in one, to which was added a considerable collection of natural his- 
tory owned by the Essex Institute. In 1906 Dr. Charles G. Weld 
added to many generous gifts a fine extension in the rear to house 
the superb ethnological collections which are now so fittingly dis- 
played. An attractive lecture hall seating several hundred is in 
frequent demand for entertainments. 




Privateer Grand Turk, Entering Marseilles, 1815 

In the Marine Room, which occupies the old banking-rooms, 
are many fine portraits of Salem merchants and sea-captains, a 
varied group of models of ships and an immense collection of 
pictures of old-time ships. 

Above in the East India Marine Hall are to be found the cases 
filled with the exhibits of natural history, notably a very complete 
one of the fauna of Essex County, wliile in Ethnology Hall are the 
ethnological collections from India, China and the Pacific Islands, 
together with those from Africa, North and South America and in 
Weld Hall the most comprehensive collection of Japanese ethnology 
in the world. 

Here again, if exhaustive examination were made, many days 
would be necifed, and it is safe to say that the casual visitor making 
a tour of the whole city will, if he is particularly interested in the 
subjects covered, decide to return at another time and devote himself 
to this alone. 

Following on through Essex Street, the main tlioroughfare of 
the city, we pass on the left and somewhat to the rear of the build- 
ings fronting on the street. 

The Dignified Old Market House 

built in 1816, upon the site of the sumptuous house built in 1799 by 
Elias Hasket Derby at a cost of eighty thousand dollars, in which 
he only lived a few montlis before his death, after which it was 
offered for sale, but no purchaser appearing for so costly an estab- 
lishment it was deeded to the city and later taken down and the 
market house erected. It is greatly to be regretted that this finest 
of all Samuel Mclntire's designs should have been lost for all time. 

A short block further and we reach Town House Square, the 
city's heart, at the crossing of Essex and Washington streets. Here 
took place the cutting, by John Endicott, of the red cross of St. 
George from the flag of England as an improper symbol in a Puritan 
commonwealth; here stood the old Town Pump, "A Rill" from which 
was written by Hawthorne; also, before 1676, the Watch House, 



and at the present time upon the southeast corner stands the First 
Church upon the site of the original structure, but with several inter- 
vening buildings. There has therefore been a church upon this 
ground since 1635 or earlier. 

In the grounds of the Essex Institute has been erected the frame 
of a building which was long supposed to be that of this church of 
1635, but a very careful investigation disproved the fact and it is 
now believed to have been the frame of the first meeting-house of the 
Society of Friends, deeded to them in 1690 by Thomas Maule, the 
builder, and one of their Society. 

Turning north up Washington Street to its terminus and then 
up Federal Street we see the 

Group of Three Court Houses 

but looking backward to an earlier date than these it is known that 
in 1672 the first meeting-house was removed to make way for another 
building and in 1676 the timbers were used to construct a town, 
school, court and watch house about four rods to the west of its 
former site. Before it was completed it was moved thence to a 
point just east of the present Masonic Building on Washington 
Street, so that it faced directly down the street, where it stood until 
1718, and it was in this building that the poor victims of the witch- 
craft delusion were tried, if the travesty of justice accorded them 
can be dignified by that term, in 169;^. Nineteen were hung on Gal- 
lows Hill, at the westerly border of the city, most of them from 
decisions in this Court, but let us once more emphasize the fact, that, 
despite popular tradition, none were burned, although one, Giles 
Corey was pressed to death. 




In 1718 a new Town and Court House was built just west of the 
present First Church which served through the Revolutionary War 
and until 1785. In this, in 1774, sat the last General Assembly 
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which on June 17th, in 
defiance of Governor Gage, chose delegates to the first Continental 
Congress. 

In 1785 a new Court and Town House was built, from designs 
by Mclntire, just beyond the mouth of the present railroad tunnel, 
to the east of the granite Court House, which was removed in 1839 
to make way for the tunnel, and in the course of the next two or 
three years the present building was erected. In 1861 the brick 
building to the westward was built and here, in the office of the 
Clerk of Courts, are to be seen the testimony in the witchcraft trials, 
the death warrant of Bridget Bishop and some of the pins which 
the victims were accused of using to torture the afflicted ones. 

In 1909 the splendid granite building of the Registry of Deeds 
and the Probate Court, still further to the west, was opened for use. 

A block beyond the Courts, still following Federal Street, is the 

Peirce-Nichols House 

the best existing example of Mclntire's work which remains, to which 
entrance may be obtained upon Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, 
upon application to the Essex Institute which now owns the house, 
although it is still used as a residence by the two ladies whose home 
it has been for many years. 

Returning a few rods to North Street and following it a block to 
the south, upon the corner of Essex Street stands the so-called 

Witch House 

from a tradition that some of the preliminary examinations in the 
witchcraft trials were held in one of the rooms, Jonathan Corwin, 
one of the judges, being then its occupant. The house which was 
unfinished in 1675, was then reconstructed in much its present form, 
and it is much to be regretted that a modern shop has been built 
out from one corner. 

Leaving here and continuing up Essex Street we pass the fine 
stone structure of the North Church, formerly in a wooden building 
on Lynde and North streets in 1772, but removed to the present 
building in 1835 and next door the attractive house and wonderful 
garden of the 

Ropes Memorial 

The house was built in 1719 and remained in possession of the Ropes 
family from 1768 to the death of the Misses Ropes who by their 
wills established a trust under which the property was to be main- 
tained with a special fund to provide for botanical lectures. The 
furnishings are as they were during the occupancy of the family and 
the interior may be visited upon certain days of the week. 

Still keeping to Essex Street we pass upon the left the fine house 
built by Joseph Cabot in 1748, where later lived Supreme Court 
Justice William Crowninshield Endicott, Secretary of War under 
President Cleveland, and diagonally opposite a large brick building 
built in 1855 by Captain John Bertram and given by his heirs, in 
1887, to the city as a Public Library. By its side stands the superb 
Bertram Elm, nineteen feet in circumference, and the largest in this 
region. 

At the next corner, Flint Street, we turn left and almost at 
once again to the left, passing down Chestnut Street, lined on both 
sides with dignified houses dating for the most part to early in the 
nineteenth century. At Pickering Street we digress to the right for 



one block, turning down Broad Street to pass the Pickering house, 
built in 1660 by John Pickering, but remodeled and the many gables 
added in 1841. This house has always remained in possession of the 
Pickering family. 

Hamilton Hall 

At the next corner, turning into Cambridge Street, one block 
brings us to a good-sized brick building, which has been the scene of 
many social gaieties since it was built in 1805. Named in honor of 
Alexander Hamilton, the beautiful hall upon the second floor has been 
graced by the presence at dinners of Colonel Timothy Pickering, of 
Revolutionary fame, in 1808; of Commodore Bainbridge in 1813, 
and of Lafayette in 1824. 

Here have been held for many years the Salem Assemblies at 
which it has been incumbent upon every belle of the town to appear 
if she would be considered as one of the exclusive set, and for some 
years the performances of a clever set of amateur actors were given 
here. 

From here Chestnut Street leads directly into Norman Street, 
and thus back to the railway station. 

The above by no means exhausts the points of interest, but 
does include the principal ones and affords a tour easily accom- 
plished in a limited time. 




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